


Personality Clash

by Tarlan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-20
Updated: 2005-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-21 14:10:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Rodney talk while they are held captive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Personality Clash

**Author's Note:**

> SGAHC 5-minute challenge story... with the first line as _"My father never..."_

"My father never..."

John waited but Rodney had taken on that distant look that told him he was in another time and place right now. He prompted carefully, giving Rodney a nudge with his elbow. "Never what?"

Rodney snapped back into the here and now with a physical jerk, breath hissing and eyes widening momentarily. "What?"

"Your father never...what?"

"Oh." Rodney made a few noncommittal noises before taking a deep, ragged breath. "He never liked me," he said in a rush, as if admitting to this quickly would make it sound better some how.

"Mine neither," John murmured in reply as the cold and damp of the forest floor began to seep through his pants to numb the skin of his ass.

"Really?"

John shot him a sideways glance. "Yeah...really."

"Oh."

Silence followed and John leaned in closer to Rodney, wanting to share the small amount of body warmth radiating through their standard issue clothing. He could feel Rodney shivering beside him. He could feel the fine tremors racing through his own body, silently wishing their captors would let them draw closer to the small fire. John let his head drop back until it touched the tree against which they were both seated. He glanced up through the dark canopy of branches to the starlit sky, wondering if it was possible to see the world where Atlantis lay among the myriad of bright stars. He felt Rodney's head drop sideways onto his shoulder and resisted the urge to shrug him off but this was injury, cold and exhaustion at work, nothing more. He was probably not even aware that his head had dropped.

"Any idea why?" John asked softly, wanting to keep Rodney talking because he was afraid that if Rodney slept then he might never wake up again.

"Hmm?"

John shrugged his shoulder, gently, not wanting to exacerbate the head injury that Rodney had sustained during the short but pointless fight to escape capture. The club had struck him hard enough to knock the sense out of him for several minutes and, in the pale light of two distant moons, John had seen the ribbons of black running down the side of Rodney's face. Blood.

"Why didn't he like you?" he asked again.

"Said I was a mommy's boy."

John laughed softly, almost picturing Rodney holding onto his mom's skirt, refusing to join in the rough and tumble of other kids his age, and becoming a never-ending source of frustration for his father. He wished his own father had such a pathetic reason for not liking him but the rift between them was far deeper than a little personality clash. On the day he was born, his mother died...and his father had never forgiven him.

The staccato of gunfire stilled that train of memory and John smiled as Ford and Teyla came rushing into the clearing, with Bates' team offering reinforcement.

"Calvary's arrived," he stated, offering a silent thanks as he heard Rodney's mumbled, "Thank God!"

END


End file.
